Waterfarm Ph Problems On Recirculating System

The system is a modded waterfarm 8-pack with the recirculating system installed. The recirculation is functioning properly. Water is city water but clean and with a ppm of about 27. Nutrients used are AN sensi bloom A and B, Big Bud, Bud Candy, and 4ml/gallon od 35% h2o2.
medium is triple washed hydroton, half from last round sterilized and reused.
plants are female, indica dominant, just hitting second week into flowering after 4 weeks veg time from cutting.

The order of operations is:
1- fill rez
2-add h2o2
wait
3- add bloom a
4-add bloom b
5-add big bud
6-add bud candy.
7-wait
8- take ph/EC

the ec of the rez is 1.3 and the ph without anything added but the nutes and h2o2, self adjusts to 5.8.

next drain rez into the control bucket and system.
once rez is empty, refill with fresh water and 4ml 35%h2o2, ph adjust

The next day the solution in the buckets is up to ph 6.8. and the solution in the rez up to about 6.5.

ph down is added to the control bucket, left to recirculate, then repeated until the ph is near 5.8.

have tried lightly overcompensating with ph down to keep the average ph lower, but it just keeps going up. keep having to drain and flush the system and waste nutes because the ph is difficult to control despite a functioning recirculating system. cant let the salts build up.
solution has been to add ph down to the control bucket and wait for the entire solution to recirculate until proper or slightly lower ph is reached.

this is driving me crazy- can anybody help? this happened when i was using hygrozyme too, but currently i am only running nutes +h2o2.
I hope i left enough info- and look forward to your input.

Why dont you use cal mag instead of H2O2?

Loose the Bud Candy, it's glorified over priced molases, and it's not good for hydroponic systems. The sugar feeds bacteria in the res which multiply causing a rapid rise in PH. Try sticking with H2O2 and the Sensi A & B only and see what happens. Keep it simple and you'll have less problems.

highpsi said:

Loose the Bud Candy, it's glorified over priced molases, and it's not good for hydroponic systems. The sugar feeds bacteria in the res which multiply causing a rapid rise in PH. Try sticking with H2O2 and the Sensi A & B only and see what happens. Keep it simple and you'll have less problems.

Click to expand...

Intuitively, I don't think the pH is rising from the bud candy because the ph jumps over night, while there is still H2o2 in the system killing off any bacteria. I feel like what you are saying makes sense, and I may well try it, but I would think as you described it, the pH would only go up after a few days when the h2o2 has neutralized and no more bacteria is being killed.

@cruzer

Thanks for your response as well. I haven't been using Calmag because I haven't noticed any deficiencies. I use h2o2 as it keeps my system clean, my roots healthy, and a few days with extra dissolved O2 in the water. I don't understand how adding Calmag would help me. Could you enlighten me from your experience? Ill do a search in the meantime.

Thanks again for the responses, as this is the only hiccup in my system. Any other thoughts?

Sorry man.

I was stoned last night, I must have confused H202 with Epsom salts.

Lights just came on and i went in to check on things-- ph up again, to about 6.8. Up from 5.6 last night.

Here is the interesting thing:
I checked the pH in my rez as well. My rez was filled with fresh water and ph balanced. The ONLY thing I added to the water besides pH down, was 4mL/gal. of H202.

the rez went from 5.2 yesterday to 6.8 today.

I think I MAY have found my culprit? I had just NEVER heard of 35% H202 causing a pH rise. Has anyone ever heard of this?

Still frustrating as hell as every damn night i have to get in there and add ph down to the buckets so as to not have to drain/fill my system every 3 days. Can't just let her go until a weekly flush.

After this harvest, Im moving into a house and am going vertical in the style of heath robinson. Ive had good results in the past from these waterfarms, but they are not the most simple and efficient way to grow, and a pain in the ass to deal with all that hydroton.

anyway, thanks all! Your responses are great- and i still hope to hear about 35% h202 and reports of pH fluctuation-
ciao
dott.X

I am not sure about this but, I think there are stabilizers used when the water is being treated before it comes out of your faucet. these stabilizers keep the PH constant which fight your attempts to lower the PH. I might try the reverse osmosis system. Mabey one of the pros will join this thread and we can sort this whole thing out! : )

Glad you found your culprit.
About the water farms.

I had pretty good success once I set it up so they all drained back to one res under them after watering. It made it much easier to control things. You need a lower res then pump up into controller, into buckets, when the water gets there the air pump takes it from there. At the end of the cycle all the water drains back to one res.

Check out my waterfarm journal for details.

But then I basicly made dutch pots out of them by suppling the rings with water through the existing air line and pluging up the bottom of the tube where the air comes out. It constantly drained back to the lower res.

Is that what you meant by recirculating?

thanks bizzarO - good idea about the water. I am lucky enough to live in an area with very fresh pristine non treated water Other growers in the area have no problems. thanks for your input!

@cruzer-:

My recirculating system links all the buckets together terminating back in the control bucket. You gave me such a simple idea to just change the way I feed them. If all else fails, I may well do that. It would make it so much easier to control the ph that way. Really though, not too much of an issue for me in the end, this will be my last round using them. I am so very excited to build the new system. When it is up and running is will be infinitely simpler to maintain, far more efficient with light, and not having to clean and wash multiple 50L bags of hydroton....ugh. Anyway, thanks! we'll see with the next flush if the absence of h202 will do the trick. Then again, perhaps once all the o2 is released, in a day or two, theoretically the solution ph should be relatively stable at that point if, indeed, co2 is the cause. We'll see.
CHEERS!

Noticing brown fuzzies attached to the submerged tubes in the control buckets, i did some research. Goddamnit if i dont have BROWN ALGAE. Im certain it had taken hold when i started using the bud candy, the only organic thing in my rez. Brown algae feeds on the sugars and requires virtually no light to thrive in. It is guilty for PH rises, and 35% H202 wont get rid of it. I need to go to the hydro store and pick up some killer for it. If that doesnt work, Im elevating my system to do a type of dutch pot as well to reduce the algae.
This is definitively the cause of my headaches. only 2.5 weeks in but hope to not lose the crop. shit.shit.shit.

The again i just read an EPA factsheet on physan 20 and i might just not use it. It seems ridiculously toxic- and not domething i want in my roots at all. SO if it isnt safe to use, any thoughts on modding into the dutch pot system and whether that might solve the problems? Otherwise i buy ebb/flow tables and start again. fuck

Man, I don't know why you refuse to follow my advice and stop using the bud candy. You just said it yourself that it's causing your algae problems, which is more than likely the reason for your PH problems. Regardless, if you continue using bud candy for the rest of this grow, try leaving it out on the next and see how you make out. I can't hurt to try.

Don't take it personally Highpsi--Im taking care of business. It went down like this:

system first infected by hygrozyme
bud candy DID cause algae bloom
algae bloom DID cause pH to skyrocket
35% h202 did not kill the algae
nothing kills brown algae but physan 20
got physan 20 and applied
all is well
new nutes indeed exclude the bud candy.
all erroneous light leaks have been sealed
rez temps are fine
girls on the rebound and budding up nicely in only 17 days of 12/12

cheers all

I got to agree with the bud candy. If it really is molasses then you dont want that near a system that has h202 or chem nutes or nothing like botanciare for hydro that is meant to be with organics. You can never tell when you introduce liveng creatures into a sytem what is happeneing. They ar alive. Who is to say what is happening. I garden organic soil and dabble in hydro and I cant thinkt aht unless you got some ph stabilsier for bacteia and fungi going that it is a bad thing, Then again I dont knwo what bud candy is.

I should add that the blessed physan 20 also did away with my fungus gnat problem. SWEEEEET!

I had huge ph probs with my hydro until I got the HG hardwater micro. The GH three part I was using and when I switched to the HARDWATER version of micro it took care of it. Another solution is to cut a lemon in half and drop it in your res. I got that on a grodan site.

lemons and other weak acids/bases only lower the PH of a hydro system for a temporary amount of time. Usually within minutes/hours the PH is back to original form if you try remedying it with a lemon.

The acids in lemon aren't PH balanced